Alraune
by Mimic Teruyo
Summary: Not all outsiders cross the border intact...
1. Body and Mind

_**Alraune**_

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I woke up, before I opened my eyes, was a sweet, hypnotising, flowery scent that overwhelmed my senses.

Something was amiss, I could tell right away. It wasn't a bad feeling, per se, but definitely odd: it was as if someone had stuffed my head full of cotton scented with wild flowers. Which flowers, I wasn't quite certain. Lilacs? Irises? It was difficult to think, and despite my uncertain predicament an overwhelming desire to return to sleep kept pushing me back beyond the surface. I didn't want the soft warm feeling to go away just yet.

After several more minutes, when the nagging feeling of something being wrong wouldn't go away no matter how hard I tried to smother it, I finally decided to wake up for real. I still couldn't open my eyes in my sluggish state, but I slowly became more aware of my surroundings.

I was lying on my back on soft grass, with no sound to be heard save for a gentle breeze occasionally washing over me. Which was very odd, really, seeing that I had no recollection of ever falling asleep in a place like this.

Come to think of it, what had I been doing?

I forced my eyes open only to quickly snap them shut again as sunshine beamed directly into my poor unsuspecting retinae. Still, I managed to catch a glimpse of white flowers. On my next attempt, I got a much clearer picture of my strange temporary bed: nothing but lilies-of-the-valley as far as the eye could see, a sea of green and white, tear-like dewdrops glistening on their leaves.

I stared at them, still lying down, trying to figure out where on earth I could be. I had never seen a flower field like this before, that was for sure. How had I even ended up here?

I closed my eyes and sighed, trying to reminisce about what had happened before I had fallen asleep. My memories were muffled by the cotton in my brain, distant and unreal. I kept digging, and finally found something concrete: a familiar mental image of a railway station on a rainy morning. That had to be it.

* * *

_Left, right, avoid the group of office workers, keep moving, go around the giggling middle schoolers, don't step in the puddle, ignore the stares, you can still make it, run run run..._

_I keep wading through the crowd that gathers at the station every single morning, pulling the hood of my red cardigan more securely over my head to shield me from the relentless rain. I am late, just like I am on every other morning of my miserable life, and can already hear my home room teacher's scoldings ringing in my ears. The others look askance at me, but I don't care._

_I sigh mentally. It hadn't meant to oversleep, I never do, no matter what my home room teacher keeps telling me. I really tried to wake up on time: I bought the loudest alarm clock I could find, and made sure to set it every single night. Problem is, not even the piercing beeps of the accursed thing are enough to rouse me on most mornings._

_Thing is, I am unable to fall asleep at will. On most nights, regardless of how early I turn in, I won't actually slip into unconsciousness until the wee hours of the morning. Is it then a wonder that when the blasted alarm clock rings at seven thirty to greet me into another day, I'm still so groggy that as soon as I get the thing silent I turn around and fall into reverie once more? I don't know why it's like this, but it's always been so: some of my earliest memories are of peeking through the curtains down at the empty streets bathing in moonlight._

_So, you can imagine why I roll my eyes at Mr. Moriyama when he suggests I go to bed earlier in the evening if I'm so tired all the time, and get sent into detention for disrespecting him._

_Still, all isn't lost today. I can still catch my train. I leave the cover of the archway and swerve towards the platform..._  
_And crash right into another commuter and fall to the ground. A splash and a wet sensation being absorbed through my school uniform tell me I landed in one of the many puddles riddling the concrete. Fantastic. At least I didn't break any bones._

_The person I crashed into hadn't as much as budged despite the impact, like they were a concrete wall, and even as I was still seeing stars I could feel their gaze boring down on me._

_"I'm sorry..." I begin and look up, only to freeze as soon as I see exactly what sort of person I had run into. She is a foreigner, taller than any woman I have ever seen, with long blonde hair and a knowing smirk on her face. She looks so strange and out of place, standing there in an elegant nightgown and holding a parasol in the middle of a full station with dimly-clad people scurrying around. It almost looks like she was glowing. The strangest of all, no-one else seems to pay her any attention._

_And when I get back on my feet, she smiles at me. It's a wide smile, with more than a little mischief. My stomach churns._

_"I'm very sorry," I repeat, then say the same in English just in case. She doesn't react to either phrase, but keeps her gaze directly on my eyes. I look away. I really don't want to meet it._

_I remember the train and scramble on my feet. "I'm terribly sorry, but I must hurry." I give her a quick bow and turn to leave._

_But my feet won't move._

_"I wonder..." the mysterious woman looks at me, her finger on her chin, her head tilted, and an amused smile on her face. "If I were to tell you your life is going to change forever, what would you do?"_

_"Huh?" It wasn't that I didn't understand her: her Japanese was impeccable. It were the words that made no sense._

_Her grin widens._

_And then..._

* * *

I rubbed my forehead. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn't remember more. After that, the next thing in my memory was waking up here, wherever I was.

Had I just imagined the whole thing? It couldn't be: something must have happened for me to end up on this flower field. But what? And why?

There were all these questions, and yet I couldn't bring myself to really care at this moment. I felt so comfortable just lying there. While there was little sun directly on me, the sunny air felt like the warmest blanket, and the grass I was lying on was miraculously soft. In fact, I was just thinking about drifting back to sleep and when my back started to itch. It felt like there was something stuck to it.

I slowly reopened my eyes and raised my hand to rub my forehead again. I blinked. Even if my memories were moving as slowly as molasses, I was pretty sure I hadn't been wearing green bracelets when I last checked.

"Huh?"

Something was wrong with my voice; it was way too high-pitched. I let my hand drop on my chest and felt some sort of a ribbon attached to my clothes.

I forced myself into a sitting position and took a better look of what I was wearing. I was in a white and green dress with a bell-shaped skirt, decorated with a light green ribbon on the front. My feet were bare save for an anklet on my left leg and when I reached out to grab my hair, I discovered wavy green locks with small white flowers interwoven to them.

_What the hell?_

I touched my face. It felt completely different too, a lot smoother and smaller. Now that I thought of it, my hands were a lot smaller as well.

Finally, I reached out and touched the itch on my back. I quickly pulled my hand away as I felt something filmy and fragile that definitely hadn't been there before. I summoned up my courage and touched the thing again, carefully pulling whatever it was into my field of vision. It looked like translucent fabric, framed with dark green vines. I finally registered it as a wing. When I concentrated, I could actually move it, and realised there was another one too.

There was only one obvious conclusion.

I had become a fairy.

How was that even possible? Fairies don't exist. And I'm a human. Humans don't just randomly transform into other creatures, especially not into ones that don't exist.

I jumped on my feet, and immediately regretted it: my vision blurred and I fell on my knees due to light-headedness.

There had to be some other explanation to what was going on. Maybe I was drunk? Or High? I neither drank nor did drugs. Maybe the lady had given me something unsavoury, and I had simply forgotten about it. At least substance abuse and hallucinations would explain my headache and the weird things going on around me. More than this all being reality, anyway.

Standing up attempt #2 proved to be more successful than the first. It still felt like a stubborn little smith was hammering away inside my skull, but at least I could get on my feet and look around without fainting.

I appeared to be standing in a valley on a large hill, maybe even a mountain. The entire valley was teeming with lilies-of-the-valley. It was more than a sea: it was an ocean of flowers. Towards the horizon, there were forests, and far into the distance a huge mountain. Nowhere where there signs of any human settlements.

As a test, I grabbed my wings again. They still felt real. Either those drugs had been some serious shit, or I really had been transported so far away from the city I couldn't even see roads. It was possible, but still wouldn't explain my sudden metamorphosis.

I buried my head in my hands. I wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe I'd wake up back up home, back to normal and all in one piece. I'd take a month's worth of detention over this shit. Anything that would make this nightmare go away. Anything that would allow me to stop thinking about all this, anything that would make my throbbing head feel better.

"I really don't think this is safe..."

I pricked my ears up and raised my face from my hands. An unfamilir voice. Young, female. Nervous. Very nervous.

"Don't worry, Dai-chan, it's gonna be fine. Besides, it's worth the risk." Another stranger. Infinitely more enthusiastic and optimistic than the first. I looked around but couldn't see its owner. Then, I finally realised the voices were coming from above...

"Yeah, but what if she sees us? I don't want to be poisoned..." the first voice replied, and I could finally see who the speaker was as the mysterious duo descended from the skies: a young girl with a green ponytail on one side of her head, wearing a dress the colour of forget-me-nots. She had wings. I really wished she didn't. I really wished I stopped seeing impossible things.

"Don't worry," her partner said, grinning. She had short blue hair and wings that looked like shards of ice sticking from her back. "I'll just kick her butt and-" she fell silent as soon she clapped her eyes on me.

"Hey, it looks like someone's beaten us to it," she continued. She landed right in front of me and placed her hands on her hips. "Who're you?"

I took a step backwards. I didn't even mean to. I certainly wasn't intimidated by this fairy in front of me, no matter how she glared at me. It was almost as if my strange new body had a will of its own. The other fairy had landed by now, and also stared at me with curiosity.

"Well?" the blue fairy repeated, pulling a face.

"I'm..." my voice sounded so annoying and shrill even to my own ears. I didn't understand how the two of them could stand it.

Then it hit me. A realisation far worse than anything since I had woken up as a fairy.

I had forgotten my name.

Shouldn't that be impossible? How could I forget the thing that made me me? I racked my brain for memories that might help.

There was that morning at the railway station...meeting with the mysterious stranger...and..oh god, what else had there been? Lying awake during the night, staring at the wall...something like that anyway...there had been school...there were some blurry memories of other people, maybe my friends and family...but as soon as I tried to grasp the memories, they floated further away, until they were but faint images hopelessly beyond my reach.

The more I tried to remember, the worse my headache got. There were stars in my eyes, but I couldn't give up. I had to know...there must have been something I could use as a leverage...

Who was I?

I must have looked ridiculous, standing in place with my mouth hanging open for so long, because the fairy called Dai-chan tilted her head and said: "I think you scared her, Cirno."

"What?" the one called Cirno said. "I just asked her who she is."

"I know, but..." Dai-chan took a step forward and gave me a reassuring smile. "It's okay, she's not really mad at you. We just didn't think there'd be anyone else here."

"Why not?" I heard myself asking. For some reason, just focusing on the conversation made me feel so much better. I knew I had to keep thinking if i didn't want t lose myself completely, but a little break was probably fine.

"Because hardly anyone comes here nowadays," Dai-chan continued. "I mean, we come here sometimes, and other fairies do too, and sometimes there's a ghost or two hanging around...but most of the time, it's just her..."

"Her?" I asked.

"Yeah," Cirno chimed in. "And when we saw you we thought you'd had the same idea for a prank as we did, so."

"Prank?"

"Yup!" Cirno beamed with pride. "We're gonna grab a bunch of flowers and shower then on the Hakurei Shrine's courtyard, 'cause it's Reimu's birthday. It's like a prank and a gift at the same time! Clever, isn't it?"

"Uh, sure." I said. It seemed to work, because she grinned at me.

"We really should hurry, though," Dai-chan said, her eyes darting around nervously. "Medicine Melancholy doesn't like it when we pick up flowers here."

"Who's that?"

Cirno shrugged. "She's this youkai who lives here. Dai-chan thinks she's scary. You don't have anything to fear from her, she probably likes lily-of-the-valley fairies."

Fairies. That got my mind working again. After all, there had been something very important I had to think about.

My mind drew blank. It had something to do with a blonde-haired lady, that I knew for sure.

"Hey," I said. "do you know anyone with long blonde hair that smiles a lot?"

Cirno and Dai-chan looked at each other. "You're gonna have to be a lot more specific," Cirno said.

"Umm..." Thinking made my head hurt. "I think she has a parasol. And a really pretty dress."

"Yukari Yakumo, maybe?" Dai-chan said after a brief hesitation.

"What's she like?"

"She's really strong," Cirno said, nodding as she spoke. "and she plays pranks on people too, but she never gets punished even if she gets caught. I'm going too be as strong as her one day, and play all the pranks I want." She grinned. "Speaking of which, we should grab those flowers and scram. Wanna come along?"

"Umm..." Both Cirno and Dai-chan smiled at me brightly. I couldn't refuse. "Yeah, that sounds like fun."

"Great!" Cirno raised her hands towards the sky. "I'm Cirno, by the way. And that's Daiyousei," she added, pointing at her friend.

"You can call me Dai-chan if you want," Daiyousei said. Her smile was really kind.

"Okay, Dai-chan," I replied. "I'm Alraune. Nice to meet you."

I paused. Something was nagging at me in the back of my head. Was that really my name? But it had come out so easily, it must have been.

Both Cirno and Dai-chan took it in stride, anyway.

"Okay, Al-chan," Cirno said without missing a beat. "Grab as many flowers as you can before Medicine shows up, 'kay?"

"Right!" I saluted and got down to business, gathering as many lilies-of-the-valley as I could. I was so nice having new friends.

And yet, something felt funny. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Hopefully the feeling would pass after a while. Maybe if I took a nap after our prank or something.

For now, I kept collecting flowers, competing with Cirno and Dai-chan to see who could gather the most before we had to go. It was a beautiful day, and this was going to be so much fun...

If only I could remember what had bothered me...

* * *

_"I do wonder..." Yukari murmured, examining her most recent prey. "more often than not, my special guests die so soon...Maybe, if I were to adapt your body and mind to your future surroundings beforehand, the fun would last longer?"_

_Her smile grew wider. "It's certainly worth a try..."_

_**THE END**_


	2. Ignorance and Bliss

_I was floating high above Misty Lake, looking for my friends, when I spotted a mermaid in the lake below. I swooped down to greet her, but by the time I had gotten to the lake's surface, she was gone and instead there was an enormous catfish with a wreath a spider lilies around its neck._

_"Is this yours, my lady?" he asked politely, and nudged its head towards a red hooded cardigan floating next to it. I wasn't sure, and I said so, and then..._

Then I was woken by bright sunlight hitting my face. I turned to my side, trying to return to the dream, not quite ready to rise from my grassy bed. The familiar scent of lilies-of-the-valley tickled my noise.

I finally gave up on falling asleep again and let my eyes flutter open. The sun was so high up it must have already been the afternoon. Not that it mattered: I had no plans for the day.

I sat up and looked around the Nameless Hill, my home. Spring had come, and with it came blooming lilies-of-the-valley. I was glad. Winter wasn't bad, but I have the feeling I was born to be a part of spring just like the flowers around me. Just seeing their leaves swaying gently in the breeze made my heart flutter.

As I admired the flowers, another person living on the hill, Medicine Melancholy, floated by, muttering something under her breath.

"Hello, Miss Medicine," I said, waving. I hadn't seen her in days.

Medicine glared at me. "Have you been to the south side of the hill lately?"

I shook my head.

Medicine sighed, and the winged doll always following her imitated the gesture. "Dandelions are invading again. Those good for nothing, poisonless..." she turned around and left, still grumbling.

I followed her with my eyes. Medicine can be pretty weird, but I still think of her as a friend. I had been scared during my first meeting with her, but in the end it turned out I didn't have to be: she had given me one judging look from top to toe, then shrugged and said: "You're one of Su-san's. You can stay." Now, we get along just fine. She doesn't talk to me much, and we usually hang out in different parts of the field, but when we do meet she's always very nice and civil. She gets a little cross sometimes if me and my other friends are being noisy, but in the end it could be a lot worse.

That is why I was sad to see her being so grumpy over something. I didn't really get why a couple of dandelions were such a big deal when we lived in a sea of lilies-of-the-valley, but even a hint of yellow made her see red. Maybe there were way more of them this year?

Maybe I could help? I had no other plans: I might as well go and pluck the dandelions away so that they would stop bothering her.

I stood up, stretching my arms and legs until I stopped feeling stiff, then took to the air and flew to the southern end of the field. It's the sunniest part of the Nameless Hill, but it has the least lilies-of-the-valley growing in it, so there's a lot of room for invading flowers. And sure enough, there were lots of yellow flowers mixed with the white.

I stooped down and got to work, plucking up every dandelion I could find, leaves and all. Maybe I could make a present of them to someone?

"That's quite the bundle you have there, Alraune."

I yelped and jumped back, spooked, clutching the flowers to my chest. Yukari Yakumo had appeared in front of me, or at least, half of her had: the lower half of her vanished into a gap decorated with ribbons.

"Hello," I said warily. Miss Yukari responded with a weird smile. I'm not sure I really understand her. Cirno and the others say she's very powerful and could probably wipe out the entire Nameless Hill if she wanted to, but she still shows up every once in a while, just to talk to me apparently. She never says anything mean, but something about the way she acts makes me nervous, even if I'm not sure why.

"Why are you picking flowers on a lovely day like this?" Miss Yukari asked, looking at the skies.

I held the flowers forward. "Miss Medicine doesn't like other flowers than lilies-of-the-valley, so I'm getting rid of them."

Miss Yukari raised her eyebrows. "You do realise dandelions can regrow from the roots alone? Just plucking away the visible parts of the plant isn't going to be enough."

"Oh." I frowned. How was I supposed to find the roots now that I had picked the flowers already? I'd have to wait until they regrew if I wanted to get it right.

"I know something else you might find intriguing," Miss Yukari said, that weird smile still on her face.

"What is it?"

Miss Yukari held out a closed fist. "Come closer."

I leaned in as Miss Yukari opened her fist. She was holding a glowing red orb the size of a cherry.

"Wow." I looked at her. "What is it?"

Miss Yukari kept smiling. Suddenly, she closed her fist and squeezed. There was a popping sound, and she opened her hand to show a glaring red light. I yelped and shielded my eyes with my hands when shutting them wasn't enough.

And then I opened my eyes. And stared at my hands. My tiny, so pale they were nearly translucent, and most importantly, wrong hands.

I looked up. Yukari was staring at me, keeping track of my every move, a malicious smirk on her countenance. My hands curled up into fists as if it was a primal reflex.

"You-" I lunged towards her, arms swinging, but she was no longer there. I let my arms fall to my sides. I had known it to be futile before I even moved a muscle. But futile or not, I had to keep trying. If nothing else, I had to make my opinion of her and her sick schemes crystal clear to her.

"Well, well," her taunting voice said behind my back. "it's nice to see you again too, Little Red Riding Hood."

I refused to respond to her and or to acknowledge the ridiculous moniker she had bestowed on me. Instead, I grasped the memories that were flooding into my brain, desperately trying to find an anchor in the sea of uncertainty. There had to be something I could hold onto no matter what, something safe from Yukari's caprice.

As hard as tried to ignore her, I couldn't help hearing her chuckle. "You look like a shrunken old lady with your face scrunched up like that."

"I don't care."

"I'm aware of that." I opened my eyes to see that Yukari had gapped herself right in front of me. "Now, is there anything new you wish to tell me?"

With a scream, I hurled myself at her, but I might have as well have attacked steam: I went through her like she was merely an illusion. I lost my balance and tumbled to the ground face-first.

"I'll take that as a no," Yukari said behind me. I heard a sound of a parasol being opened. "Can't I didn't except as much." She sighed, in a mockery of a true concerned sigh. "Anything else?"

I remained on the ground, fighting back tears. It wouldn't even matter if I said something else. The whole endeavour was futile: whatever would happen to me next depended entirely on Yukari's whims, and what attempts I had made in the past to persuade her had always fallen flat.

And yet, I couldn't give up. My life was on the line, and I refused to discard it, even if the hill I tried to crawl back up to had been metamorphosed into a near vertical mountain.

I got up, wincing as I saw fresh bruises on my knees, and turned defiantly towards Yukari. "I want to go home."

Yukari twirled her parasol. "But you are already at home, Little Red Riding Hood."

My mouth felt dry. "My real home. My old home. The one you stole away from me."

Yukari tilted her head. "Why, don't you enjoy your life here? Immortality, new friends, no responsibilities..."

"I said,_ I want to go back_!" I inadvertently screamed out the last few words. Yukari didn't as much as raise an eyebrow. "What about my parents? My sister? All my friends?"

"What about your friends here?"

Despite a slight twinge of conscience I remained adamant. "I don't care! This-" I gestured at the body I hadn't been born into. "This isn't who I am supposed to be! This isn't where I belong, even if you force me to think I do! I want-" Tears began streaming down my face. I really had tried to hold them back, but after a certain point, it no longer mattered. "Please, just give me my life back!"

I could already tell Yukari's response from her infernal smile. "It has been years, Little Red Riding Hood. The life you led then has long since passed."

"You can put me back where you took me from!" I yelled. "I know you can! Why don't you just do that?"

No response. I sank on my knees as tears blurred my vision. It was futile, futile...

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"You wish to know?"

I looked up and blinked. I had asked the same question many times before, probably every single time Yukari briefly returned my memories back to me before yanking them away once more. However, this was the first time she had even acknowledged the question.

"Of course I do!" I yelled, my voice by now hoarse from the shouting.

"At first," without a warning, she had appeared directly behind me. She grinned at me as I recoiled from her. "it was really just a whim. A test to see if I could turn an old game of mine into something longer-lasting. Naturally," she grinned at me like a cat grins at a crippled sparrow. "that is still a part of the game. And then..."

A chill ran down my spine. "And then?"

"I realised I could take this opportunity to more deeply investigate something I've been thinking about. An experiment of sorts, really. To see how someone who has had their humanity forcibly stripped from them copes under different circumstances." For a brief moment, her grin vanished. "And it seems to me you're far happier without memories of your past than with them." She opened her free palm. The red light from earlier was returning to it. This time, I knew perfectly well that it was, and what she was taking away from me.

"NO! NO!" I screamed and backed away as fast as I could as my memories were irresistibly plucked away from my mind once more. "Please, just take me back home! Don't do this!" I fell down as my mind collapsed and the world went black.

I opened my eyes. Miss Yukari was standing in front of me, her hand in a fist. My head hurt.

"I must take my leave now," Miss Yukari said, raising her parasol. I hadn't even noticed her opening it. "Say hello to your little friends for me, Alraune."

"Okay." I got up waved at her. "Bye bye, Miss Yukari."

"Indeed." For a weird moment, Miss Yukari stopped smiling, and she looked at me quietly, kind of like she was trying to see through me. I got goosebumps, but I didn't want to show her I was scared, so I didn't look away.

She slowly started smiling again, and she opened a gap under her feet and fell down into it. The gap closed behind her.

I shrugged. Miss Yukari had been bit weird like always, but at least she was nice. I looked around and saw all the dandelions I had picked so far had fallen from my hands and had scattered everywhere around. Oops.

I started collecting them again, but when I bend over, I noticed something strange: water fell down my face. I raised my hand to it, and noticed my eyes were watering, so much so it was like I had cried.

I couldn't think of any reason why I could be sad, so I wiped my eyes with the corner of my skirt and got back to work. Whatever it was, the beautiful day and pretty flowers would help me forget.

* * *

_THE END?_


End file.
